Welcome to the Key of Kiwi!

This guide references all song wheels in the game.

***You don't need this guide to play Wandersong!!***

I am not a musician and studied music theory in my spare time. With help from the Wandersong community, I have been given better resources to create a better guide. However, please bring any errors to my attention. I'll fix them as fast as I can. :)

This guide has several other guides within it, such as:
1) Controls Guide (Table 1.1 - 1.3)
2) Note Guide (Table 2)
3) Key Signature Guide (Table 3)
4) Beat Guide (Table 4)
5) Button Mapping Guide (Table 5)
6) Game Guide (Table 6.1-6.3)

Use the Table of Contents to skip sections. ( you can also search terms using Ctrl + f, or ⌘ + f )

Special thanks to:
@The Sojourner for the feedback!
@SamTheCookieLord for the sound files!
@Rachet for the music lessons!
@Stuff83 for the music lessons!

Update 6/8/2024 - Long awaited beat guide is finally here, I had to fight a ghost for a few years and grow into a better artist. :)

Whenever you want to sing, you can do so by:

• Pressing any of the numbers on your keyboard
  
• Using left-click on your mouse
  
• Using the right analog stick

This will pop up a colorful music wheel. That wheel has eight unmarked colors, which make eight different sounds. For this guide, the order of the music wheel is as follows:

Table 1.1: Shows the song wheel's keyboard and controller directions in counterclockwise order.

For those using the number pad, the order of the music wheel is this:

Table 1.2: Shows both number pad directions of the song wheel in counterclockwise order. Which makes a wheel!

The bard can sing while dancing, talking, walking, running, and whenever the feeling's right. The bard even can whisper-sing. The bard always has access to singing at least 48 notes at any given time. Below is a table showing you how to access those notes.

Table 1.3: Shows additional inputs to change the type of sound on the song wheel.

When the game starts, your song wheel will be in C Major.


Image 1: An animated gif of the bard singing with middle C (C 4) listed as the top left note and progresses counterclockwise in C Major (D, E, F, G, A, B) with the eighth note being a higher frequency C note (C 5) at the top of the wheel.

Your notes are unmarked and remain unmarked for the entire game. (Hence this guide!)

C Major contains the notes "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do" or commonly read in sheet music as "C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C"!

The bard will change the notes on the song wheel within the game.
This detailed in the Key Signature Guide.

The bard also makes sounds while singing. Here is a list of the sounds made for each note.

Warning that the table is rather long, so use Ctrl + f, or ⌘ + f, and search for "Table 2" to skip.
Table 2: A table with all the keys available in-game that starts from the top key and moves clockwise to the top left key. It is presented this way due to crouched notes not containing a higher octave.

Image 2: Two musical staff are presented with every note in the game. The top staff is called the Treble Cleft and marks where G 4 is on the music ledger. The bottom staff is called the Bass Cleft, and marks where F 3 is upon the staff. The fourth measure has been deleted for readability.

Similar to writing, music can be created and read. When music is placed on paper, this is called sheet music, which helps organize the keynotes into a readable staff. Once the music is composed for the staff, the song can be played using the corresponding notes.

The staff comprises three parts, a staff note, horizontal staff lines, and the time signature. The staff note can be a fancy scripted G, F, or C. The staff note nestles the same corresponding note in the middle of the letter, which helps you reference the other notes on the staff. This is important because staff lines are read on the line and within the spaces. For the simplicity of this guide, we will only focus on the G staff, otherwise known as Treble cleft.

The staff will also mark the key signature for a given song.

For Treble Clef, the sharps/flats are as follows:
Sharp Order Guide:
FCGDAEB

Flat Order Guide:
BEADGCF


Sharps are represented with the pound symbol (#), while flats are represented with a lowercase b. When reading a key signature, the notes that are sharp or flat will be marked before the Staff Note on their respective lines. You may have noticed when ascending the sharps or flats that each note is five steps away from the other. This is called the Circle of Fifths. Remembering the circle of fifths will aid in remembering which keys are sharpened or flattened.

All key signatures in Wandersong are listed below.

Table 3: All relevant majors and minors used in Wandersong.

Image 3: The song wheel is in the center of the screen with a staff placed below the wheel. The staff is in 4/4 time and has four measures. Likewise, the song wheel has four sections spaced away from the origin. These 25% slices fill up as notes on the measure are counted. This will be reflect in the table in the next section.

The time signature can be viewed after the staff note and is measured in beats per measure. Common time is 4/4, used to create the number of notes placed into a measure. A measure is represented by the denominator of the time signature, and there should be four boxes in common time. Within those boxes should be four quarter notes which are represented by the numerator of the time signature. Above, in "Image 3", four quarter notes are placed into each of the four measures. If this were rewritten to 3/4's time, there would only be three-quarter notes within the four measures.

In-game, I have no idea how to measure the time signature. However, you may have noticed a white ring pulse out from the bard as they sing. This pulse ends at the edge of the ring and makes the background bounce! The bard's fully expanded circle represents four held quarter notes, a whole note. To create a quarter note, wait until the circle is 25% full, then let go or change the note to complete a quarter note.

Timing is only important during certain sections of the game and the bard can sing freely outside of the beat.

Below is both a table guide to different note lengths as well as different resting lengths. (In case you're looking at some music!)

Table 4: All beats and how long to hold them.

Table 5: All relevant keys and modes used in Wandersong

This part of the guide was difficult to put together without accidentally listing any spoilers.

A Shell In The Pit (opens new window)[ashellinthepit.com], who are the team responsible for the sound designs and music in Wandersong, have playlists on their youtube account that are relatively spoiler-free!

For Game Guide 1, please check out Wandersong - Soundtrack Volume 1 (opens new window)

For Game Guide 2, please check out Wandersong - Soundtrack Volume 2 (opens new window)

The bard will always return to the Act's given key signature unless otherwise stated within the Game Guide.

Table 6.1: Prologue to Act 3 singing controls and information.

Table 6.2: Shockingly, this is relevant to the walkthrough guide.

Table 6.3: Act 4 to the End singing controls and information.

I wanted to thank Greg Lobanov, A Shell in the Pit, Em Halberstadt, and everyone who came together to make Wandersong a reality. This game inspired me to learn more about music and brought a lot of happiness into my life.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/530320/Wandersong/

If you like the game, check out more that Greg Lobanov has done on his website:
https://dumbandfat.com/

Greg also runs a newsletter too:
https://greglobanov.substack.com/

If you use Game Maker and liked the audio engine, Greg Lobanov posted the engine he developed for Wandersong:
https://github.com/gl326/bard-audio

If you like the music and the sounds, check out more A Shell in the Pit:
https://www.ashellinthepit.com/

If you liked the bard's singing voice, check out what else John Robert Matz has voice acted through his website:
https://johnrobertmatz.com/index.html

If you wish to learn more about music theory, please check out this website by Jon Judge! I couldn't have made this guide without this!
https://www.basicmusictheory.com/